


The Utility of Wine

by CorruptLimerence



Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Character Study, Drinking to Cope, Expansion of the Chapter the Utility of Stovepipes, F/M, Unresolved Tension, but there is something there, some unresolved sexual tension, spies and subterfuge, that they intend to never resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 08:27:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16301618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorruptLimerence/pseuds/CorruptLimerence
Summary: The Cardinal and Milady have absolutely no friends. Their both users and manipulators of the highest order and that has a habit of thinning out one's friends. One would never dare to call them friends but they are drinking partners. During the Siege of La Rochelle the Cardinal meets with Milady to communicate a new assignment and to hopefully get very very drunk.





	The Utility of Wine

**Author's Note:**

> These two should have had more time together on the page. They have so much potential to play off each other with their varying motives and evil means. I love the idea that they're kind of drinking buddies because everyone else literally hates them. I also think that Milady's character is stunted in most productions/adaptations and in the original source material. I wanted to show her being a little more three dimensional.

The Red Dovetail Inn-Somewhere in La Rochelle.

Milady drinks from a goblet of wine while the Cardinal enters. He doesn’t hang in the door frame long, her gaze pools at the bottom of her glass.

“You’re late” She states out loud. Her blonde hair cascades in a molten river in the firelight and the Cardinal is just controlled enough not to stare.

Instead, he walks right past her with an air of indifference. 

“Apologies Milady, I was occupied with finishing what Joan of Arc could not,” his grave voice returns. 

“What? Burning to death in one go?” Milady smarts. Always too quick.

“No...Expelling the English from this nation forever.” The only reprieve from this wearying siege was drinking with an immoral wretch like him; at least they were both on thin ice with God. 

Milady grimaces, her little sneer didn’t do much for him though. 

“Well, while you were off with your little vendetta siege-”Milady starts

“Don’t test me-”He warns her, barely getting the wine in his system to deal with this.

“-I started drinking without you.” She raised an eyebrow. “And don’t try that false chivalry with me, we both know this whole siege is to embarrass Buckingham and humiliate him.”

“It’s imperative that french power remains centralized with the King and with Catholics, we can’t have the fragmentation of the country.” The Cardinal takes a deep swig of the wine. “But I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Of course not, what would I know about jealousy, unrequited lust, and vengeance.” She gives him a macabre grin from the rim of her cup. “I know revenge, your Eminence, and I know it when I see it.”

“I am not like you.”

“How? We both lie, cheat, and kill. The ends always justify our means.”

“Everything I do is for France at the risk of my-”

“Eternal soul?” Milady finished for him. “Please. The fates of continents ebb and flow. But my self interests and ambitions is as solid as ever.”

“Practically heretical.” He narrows his eyes at her.

“The Pope can’t reward all of us heretics with a cardinalship.” Milady needles him. “And besides? How is our lovely Anne of Austria? She is after all why you’re giving Buckingham such a sound beating.”

“As I recall, you enjoy being paid, you enjoy the luxury that the salary affords, and the protection I give you.” His turn to shoot her a grimace. That shuts her up quick. It’s all fun and games until a deal or money was on the table. She isn’t quick to return a quip. 

“What does it matter anyways, she’s back in Paris.” Milady cedes carefully, until a devious glint lights up her face. “Didn’t bring your mistress with you?”

“No, but your husband escorted me here.” The Cardinal’s barb is quick and sharp. Milady chokes, the wine sears a painful path in her sinuses. Richelieu seems satisfied with that. “You may be wondering which one? It’s Athos”

The glare she shoots him was as murderous as the one that he shoots her. Milady continues to sneer. 

“Don’t worry I won’t call him up, even if the reunion would be amusing.” He knocked back more wine. “Meanwhile: your assignment.”

Milady snatches the sheet of paper from him, later to be burnt. Her eyebrows shoot up. 

She howls with laughter. 

“Buckingham?!” she practically laughs in his face. “You want me to win this war for you! Was your siege not enough?”

“It’s not enough to have the Huguenots forced out, I need Buckingham broken, he needs to know that if he tries to cross me all of Europe will know about his romance with the Queen. His majesty would be devastated to know that his wife consorts with enemies of the state when I show him the proof.” Richelieu added. 

Milady burns the note. She knew wounded and domineering pride when she saw it. Some say she is the very picture of it, then how convenient to have a mirror in Richelieu. 

“And you want me to communicate this blackmail to him, even after the diamond stud fiasco?” Milady bites the insides of her cheeks calculatingly. “It will be difficult, especially given that he knows my face and knows I am your agent.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to bed him and wrap him around your little finger like you always manage.” Richelieu makes a bitter expression. 

“If all I could do was bed people you wouldn’t have hired me.” Milady fires back. She muses at the idea of facing off with Buckingham again. 

She breaks the liquor addled silence: “If I were going to seduce Buckingham I would have to get him very drunk first.”

The Cardinal gives her a penetrating stare from the bottles of wine.

Milady lets out silvery peel of laughter. “Don’t worry, old man, you’re safe from me.”

“What disqualifies me.” He pretends to examine the label on the bottle of wine.

“You don’t pay me nearly enough.” Milady says. “And besides you’re more challenging than Buckingham, he is prone to loving to madness or folly, and you’re a little more discerning than that.”

“I never give your memory or perceptiveness enough credit, Milady.” He pays her the compliment. He gestures to her, his rings catching the light. “Please, continue.”

Milady can’t help the grin. She rises from her seat and goes to stand behind him. 

“I would still have to get you a little drunk, and men like you like piety.” 

She trails her fingers over his shoulders, the tips dragging over the crimson clothe of his chest. Her mouth is to his ear. “I’d get down on my knees and beg for some sort of catholic indulgence and let you pretend you had the upper hand. It would start with small touches and end with you...” She breathes on his neck and stops. She didn’t think him attractive, but she loved the manipulation. “Well-nevermind that.”

She retracts from his side and examines his face, stoic as ever, but his eyes flickered over her whole body. Good.

“I’ve thought about it, your eminence.” She walks back to her seat.

“You’re far too much trouble.” He manages to say.

“And you’re more useful to me as an employer.” Milady agrees with him. “Speaking of which: my payment.”

Of course she would bring that up now. 

“I need a man killed, or at least carte blanche for murder.”

“Who is it this time?”

“You should be glad, this man has been standing in the way of your plans for months, and factors into my revenge plans as well.” She answers. “His name is D’Artagnan, he’s a Gascon who is here in La Rochelle I believe.” 

“He is still of value to me.” The Cardinal narrows his eyes.

“That’s my price. Maybe you can get Rochefort to seduce Buckingham and blackmail him instead.” Milady says.

He makes a frustrated sound at the back of his throat. He grabs a sheet of parchment and a quill, pauses, and begins writing. 

Milady tries not to eagerly peer at the sheet to make sure he wrote the right thing.

When her fingers to clasp around the edge of the parchment, he doesn’t let go.

“If you fail me with Buckingham…”His eyes cut a flash of cold fear down her whole body. “Don’t bother using this, you can stay in England.”

Milady only nods. She reads it with ample satisfaction.

“Are you staying to finish this bottle with me?” He answers, the cold of his expression only semi-present. 

“And at the very least the one after that.” Milady lifts her goblet.


End file.
